David Macaray’s How to Win Friends and Avoid Sacred Cows is Published!

David Macaray’s How to Win Friends & Avoid Sacred Cowswas published by The Ardent Writer Press on December 8, 2016. This is his account of two amazing years, 1967 and 1968, in Punjab, India as a Peace Corps volunteer. Dave, as he known among friends, never met nicer, more generous, more fascinating people than those he met in Indian. Nor had he ever lived in a more distressed environment.

How to Win Friends and Avoid Sacred Cows addresses the many ways our differences can enrich us, sadden us, and make us laugh. David’s memoir of life in India in the 1960s will have you both crying and grinning. The escapades in getting to know another country and its people are filled with insights for a time and a place where differences mean everything, but where a little understanding goes a long way toward making friends with just about anyone.

DAVID MACARAY is a ninth-generation Californian who was raised in the suburbs of Anaheim (or as it came to be known, “Disneyland”), attended public high school and Cal State University—Long Beach. Macaray has published two previous books on organized labor (along with a second edition of essays), and, as a playwright, has had more than a dozen stage plays produced. Most of these were modest productions done at small theaters in and around Los Angeles. He has written for, among others, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Huffington Post. He and his wife, Marilyn, live in Rowland Heights, California.

The memoir is on sale in numerous online retail stores such as Amazon, Books A Million and Barnes and Noble. Available in both hardback and print as well as eBook, the Amazon links to the book are below:

Dale “Steve” Gierhart is a retired business manager for the United States Army. Based in Huntsville, Alabama on Redstone Arsenal, his career lasted from 1975 to 2010 in which he managed contracts, finances/accounting, and cost estimating for several missile defense systems, among which were Stinger, Avenger, Chaparral, Sentinel, JLENS, SLAMRAAM, and Non-Line of Sight. The author wishes to thank the many co-workers, peers, and contractors who made these programs successful. It is their tireless work that brought these systems to the soldier that needed them. While budget constraints made it difficult for some of their work to see its full potential, they never blinked, they adjusted. They persevered.Steve hails from Shawnee, Oklahoma; but most of his adult life has been spent in the beautiful hills of North Alabama where he lives with his wife, Bonny, who raises Tennessee Walking Horses.Between them, Steve and Bonny have 5 children and 7 grandchildren, and another grandbaby is on the way.Steve enjoys writing now that he is retired and plans more excursions of the imagination.He and Bonny, a retired engineer who worked as a contractor on several NASA and Army programs, will travel in their retirement though 15 horses, 4 dogs and 3 cats can crimp the best of plans.